<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Interesting article, but is it really that surprising to anyone that life history diversity aids overall survival? Isn't that what life history diversity is all about?</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="verdana, sans-serif">And I was a bit surprised by the statements that biologists had thought the early outmigrants were simply surplus to the population with no effect to the returning adult population. No effect at all? Normally I'd just attribute this to journalist error, and maybe they meant to say something like </font><i style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">no significant contribution </i><font face="verdana, sans-serif">to the adult population. But the abstract of the article even says <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:18px"> "</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:18px">It has long been assumed that these latter fish did not survive to return as adults and were ‘surplus’ to the stream's carrying capacity."</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:18px"> </span> </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:15.555556297302246px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Times New Roman',serif">Unless someone believes that there are behavioral traits like this that are 100% environmentally driven, if the fall outmigrants essentially did not return as adults, wouldn't that trait have been selected out of the population a long, long time ago?</span><br>
</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:15.555556297302246px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Times New Roman',serif"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-size:15.555556297302246px">Good to know the coho are finding ways to get by.</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-size:15.555556297302246px"><br>
</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-size:15.555556297302246px">cheers,</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-size:15.555556297302246px">jay</span></font></div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:02 PM, Sari Sommarstrom <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sari@sisqtel.net" target="_blank">sari@sisqtel.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><img width="224" height="88" src="cid:image001.gif@01CF6DD1.BBF12810" alt="Columbia Basin Bulletin"></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">THE COLUMBIA BASIN BULLETIN: Weekly Fish and Wildlife News <a href="http://www.cbbulletin.com" target="_blank">www.cbbulletin.com</a> May 9, 2014 Issue No. 706<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:7.5pt;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:7.5pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="right" style="margin-right:7.5pt;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:7.5pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:right;line-height:9.0pt"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%" style="width:100.0%"><tbody><tr><td style="background:white;padding:8.25pt 8.25pt 8.25pt 8.25pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-variant:small-caps;color:black">Study Shows Complexity Of Coho Life Histories; Migration Diversity Aids Overall Survival</span></b><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"> <br>
Posted on Friday, May 09, 2014 (PST) <u></u><u></u></span></p></td></tr><tr><td style="background:white;padding:8.25pt 8.25pt 8.25pt 8.25pt"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">A study of coho salmon in three small Olympic Peninsula rivers with estuaries show a complex life history that includes juveniles that migrate to sea early in their first year and others that stay in the stream for up to a year before they migrate into the sea where they reside for six or eighteen months. </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Biologists have believed that the early out-migrants had not added to the number of adults returning one to two years later, but the study concluded that they do contribute to the number of adults that return to the streams to spawn.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">In addition, the study found that some of the juveniles migrate among the three rivers and in and out of salt water before making their final migration to the sea.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">This migration diversity is not uncommon. In fact, studies in 2011-2013 have found up to five or more juvenile coho salmon life histories in one river basin, allowing the species to spread the risk of mortality.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">However, prior to this study it was thought that the later migrants (spring) were responsible for all returning adults and that early migrants (fall/winter) simply had no impact on smolt-to-adult returns.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">As the study says, they were thought to be “’surplus’ to the stream’s carrying capacity.”</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">“Nomads no more: early juvenile Coho salmon migrants contribute to the adult return,” published in April in Ecology of Freshwater Fish (</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eff.12144/abstract;jsessionid=32580E232075E5009EC29BF07862F165.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eff.12144/abstract;jsessionid=32580E232075E5009EC29BF07862F165.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">, is by Todd Bennett, research fishery biologist with the Watershed Program at NOAA Fisheries Science Center in Mukilteo, Wash.;</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Phil Roni, Watershed Program manager at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle; Keith Denton, fisheries scientist at NOAA Fisheries; Michael McHenry, fisheries habitat biologist/manager in the Natural Resources Department of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe; and Raymond Moses, project biologist in the Natural Resources Department of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Contributors to the field work also included the Weyerhaeuser Corporation, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington Department of Ecology.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Bennett said the study is a byproduct of another project that looked at the survival of juvenile coho in streams where habitat had been enhanced (East Twin River and Deep Creek) compared to a control stream with no habitat enhancement (West Twin River). The rivers flow directly into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the northern edge of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">“Because the project has been in place for about ten years, we were able to see several generations of adult returns from the juvenile tagging,” he said. “We noticed immediately the large fall outmigration that occurred every year and wanted to see if those fish contributed to the adult return or were in fact ‘surplus’ fish.”</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Instead of being “nomads” that do not contribute to the adult population, the study found that early migrants, that is the migrants who left the river in the fall and winter of their first year, contributed 37 percent of the returning adults. Of this 37 percent, half spent two winters in salt water and returned as generally larger adults, according to the study.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">On the other hand, mean survival for the spring migrants (the later migrants) was more than three times higher than the fall/winter early migrants, largely due to body size as juveniles when they enter salt water, the report said. However, the size of a smolt when entering salt water may not be the only factor impacting survival. Early migrants “may encounter entirely different environmental conditions than those that enter in the spring: temperature, food availability and predator interactions may influence survival.”</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">In addition, movement among streams could affect SAR rates. The authors observed both stream swapping by juveniles and straying among adults.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Finally, they found that the early migrants returned to the stream as adults about 16 days later than the fish that remained in the stream and migrated out to the sea later.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">“It’s becoming apparent that this phenomenon occurs in other streams and may represent a significant portion of the adult return,” Bennett said. A recent study in Oregon is seeing similarities in streams with estuaries. That study, he said, is “transferrable in that the methods could be used in small streams throughout the range of the species, which would in turn show how variations of the early migrant life history occur across the range.”</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">While some streams have no estuaries, Bennett pointed to the Salmon River in Oregon and Winchester Bay in Oregon that have well-established estuaries. “In the northern part of the range, such as Alaska, we see all different types of streams – high gradient, low gradient, with and without estuaries. It would be great to do this type of project across the whole range (north-south) and include all types of streams.</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">I think we’d see even more life histories emerge,” he said.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">The knowledge that a significant segment of a coho salmon population once known as nomads but now known to contribute to adult returns will likely have an impact on management.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">Today, SAR estimates for coho salmon in these streams is calculated using just the spring smolt counts and some form of adult census. The estimates do not account for juveniles leaving the stream early. </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">“Our results indicated that traditional methods of spring-only smolt enumeration may underestimate juvenile survival and total smolt production, and also overestimate spring smolt-to-adult return (SAR),” the report says.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">On the other hand, the contribution of the adult return from the early fall/winter migrants is highly variable, according to the report, and so the traditional calculations for SAR would also be highly variable. In addition, predicting a higher number of early migrants could be overly optimistic if the SAR rate turns out to be lower than expected. This complicates management.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black">“If harvest rates are based only on spring SAR, they could be set higher than is sustainable for many populations,” the report says. The authors say that predictions could be better refined by incorporating metrics other than smolt numbers. Those metrics could be size (the proportion of coho greater than 70 millimeters in length, for example) and the proportion of early to later migrants leaving the stream.</span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" color="#674ea7">Jay Glase</font></span></div>
<div><font face="tahoma, sans-serif" color="#674ea7"><span style="font-size:small">Midwest Regional Fishery Biologist</span><br></font></div><div><font style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)" face="tahoma, sans-serif" color="#674ea7">National Park Service</font></div>
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<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#76a5af" size="1" face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”</font><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" size="1" color="#76a5af"> - Aldo Leopold</font><br>
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